Airtel, Vodafone waive of security deposit for New Postpaid connection

These days Telecom Operators like Airtel, Vodafone, Idea are facing stiff competition due to Reliance Jio. Major Telecom Operators are losing their subscribers (in few millions) day-by-day. Earlier, Prepaid plans were much costlier than Postpaid but Jio changed the whole equation and has forced the incumbents to fall in line.

Majority of the Indian Telecom subscribers are prepaid subscribers. Corporate postpaid subscribers used to get benefits such as Free CUG Calls within same circle, discounted call rates and bundled data in the plan. However, these days prepaid subscription is more beneficial economically as you get unlimited calls and daily 1 GB data @ just Rs.350 for 28 days. Corporate postpaid plan bundled with data starts at around Rs350 which offers only 1 GB data in a billing cycle.

For any Telecom Operator, Postpaid subscriber is a High Value Customer and retaining postpaid subscribers is very important for them. In order to retain postpaid customers, companies these days offer free data every month typically around 10 GB -30 GB on an average.

If you compare prepaid and postpaid plans offered by telecom operators in India, you would notice that postpaid is better if you are a heavy data user. However, to opt for a postpaid connection, telecom companies used to ask for a refundable security deposit depending upon the Plan Tariff.

Telecom companies like Airtel, Vodafone have now waived of security deposit completely in order to attract new customers as well as exiting prepaid customers by offering 10-30 GB of data free of cost every month for a maximum period of Six months. Also, there is no daily limit of 1 GB in these plans and hence these plans are much better than prepaid plans. Companies like Airtel also allow you to carry forward the unused data in the next month which is again a welcome move for the Indian Telecom Subscribers.

If you are a prepaid subscriber of ‘X’ company, the same ‘X’ company may offer you up to Rs.100 discount in your monthly bill every month if you migrate from prepaid to postpaid for a maximum period of six months. Also, the migration of prepaid to postpaid takes place in a hour or two with the help of E-KYC.

Companies like Vodafone and Airtel offer a free home delivery of sims and activate your sim instantly. In couple of hours (sometimes in minutes) your new postpaid sim gets activated and tele-verified.

Currently, Jio has made it mandatory to pay a refundable security deposit and opt for ECS in order to use its postpaid service.